You are one of the many
visitors who look for new pictures on our web site each day.

We have recently been
concentrating on photographs and comments about work to the new Bluebell Railway
northern extension to East Grinstead. Now that this is completed
(although in our opinion nowhere near finished) we are spreading
our coverage to other unusual views of the Bluebell and other
steam railways.

All our
pictures are
placed on the latest page first after which they are transferred to
archive or backup pages on a weekly basis. All are accessible
from this main index page which is
directly linked from every page header.
Our index page also has before and after maps of Imberhorne cutting together
with up to date diagrams of the work.

The Bluebell Railway runs steam services
between East Grinstead and Sheffield Park in Sussex. Sheffield
Park is best known for the large house and gardens of the same
name which are a half mile or so up the road from the station.

Other places served include Horsted Keynes,
where the station is about a mile from the village proper and
Kingscote which is nowhere that is near nowhere else! A walk up
from the station to Horsted Keynes village will allow you to
visit either of the two pubs and the village church (probably
best in that order!). The church is well over 1000 years old and
built on an ancient Dolman circle. For more information on the
village take a look at
www.horstedkeynes.com.

There also used to be a station at West Hoathly
but this has unfortunately been demolished and trains no longer
stop there. This makes the run from Kingscote to Horsted Keynes
which also goes through a half mile long tunnel one of the
longest uninterrupted runs on British preserved steam railways.

With the Bluebell Railway
finally reconnected with the main line at East Grinstead we
continue to cover events on vintage railway line in the South
East of England. For journey details please see
www.bluebell-railway.co.uk . Please bookmark this
page and look back frequently. There is a new YouTube appeal video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7S0vjSOslk
and we hope that our video updates will also help to keep you
informed as the railway presses out in other directions!.

These are our
unofficial pages covering several South Eastern steam railways. We started this website because we found official
coverage inadequate and wanted to show what was happening for
those who are unable to visit their railway. We must comment that
the Bluebell have improved their reporting dramatically lately. All our pictures are
taken ONLY from public land and even that access is limited so we
are just photographing what any other interested person could
easily see if they were in the area. The comments are ours alone,
they are often criticised, sometimes wrong, yet often correct!
Please read and and enjoy our pages with these thoughts in mind
but do try to visit your favourite line soon. We also hope
to cover any future extension work on the way to Ardingly.

PICTURES
AND DIAGRAMS OF THE IMBERHORNE CUTTING AREA
In all the following pictures south is to the left and north to the
right to fit the captions neatly.

Before it started! Compilation Bing Maps photo showing the state of
the cutting near East Grinstead as it was in 2008/9 standing in the
way of the Bluebell Railway reconnecting with the main line. The "mole
hills" are the positions of test drillings that were made by the
railway some time earlier. As can be seen these seem to concentrate on
one side of the tip, which is the area originally planned to be
extracted first. This is a pity as the new narrower cutting is on the
other side!

Above you can see that the way is now clear and the rails relaid
through the cutting. After the official opening work will continue to
remove the extra clay capping material and hopefully return the
cutting to nature. At both ends of the cutting a new 1 in 55 and 1 in
60 gradient has been put in to raise line level up to a summit between
the bridges and leaving a height clearance of 6 metres at Imberhorne
Lane bridge.

We are pleased to be able to include on the left a
large scale Ordinance Survey map showing the cutting before it was
filled with all that household rubbish.

As ever to see the map full size please click. This
download will hopefully give an idea of the scale of work that was
needed to complete the job.